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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24850858">come down from the mountain</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverwherever/pseuds/neverwherever'>neverwherever</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hunter X Hunter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Death, Experimental Style, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, No Major Character Death, Non-Linear Narrative, ghosts as a concept and a metaphor, the zoldycks as urban legends, written as platonic but can be interpreted otherwise</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:08:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,900</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24850858</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverwherever/pseuds/neverwherever</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>On ghosts, and hauntings.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gon Freecs &amp; Killua Zoldyck, Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>come down from the mountain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/t0talcha0s/gifts">t0talcha0s</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is the result of me wanting to writing hxh fic while, at the same time, being wine drunk and watching "I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House." thanks as always to @totalcha0s for enabling and encouraging me</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>iii</strong>.</p>
<p>Night has fallen in Padokea, and the great mountain is blotting out the stars. </p>
<p>Somewhere in the village, a mother tucks her child into the bed for the third time that night. She scolds him, tells him, <em> go to sleep, go to sleep, or the Zoldycks will get you. </em>The child squeals and ducks his head beneath the covers, for surely it is no idle threat.</p>
<p>The lights of storefronts are blinking out and the little local bars are getting rowdier. Somewhere, two young people are huddled around a fire, a boy and a girl, with shadows flickering across their faces.</p>
<p><em> Tell me a ghost story </em>, the girl says.</p>
<p><em> A dead ghost, </em> the boy asks, <em> or a living one? </em></p>
<p>The girl blinks in confusion. <em> What sort of ghost is living? </em></p>
<p>The boy smiles, and says:</p>
<p>
  <em> There once were two warring tribes in Padokea, fighting for supreme rule over the land. The heir of one tribe grew tall and strong: handsome, charming, with a clever tongue. People flocked to him, and he received them with opened arms, and he was poised to lead the tribe to sweet victory. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> The elders of the other tribe fumed with jealousy and fury, and knew something must be done. They sent their own heir — wretched, twisted, bitter — to climb to the top of the great mountain and meet the spirits there. Spirits of violence, and horror, and death. The heir spilled all the tribe’s riches in a clatter of gold at their feet, and the spirits bound a contract in blood. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> The next night the spirit of grief came down from the mountain and laid a red kiss on the young heir’s throat, and he never woke again.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Sensing treachery, the young man’s tribe broke from their mourning to storm up the mountain and make their own covenant. They piled up coins and jewelry and the heir’s circlet — a silver braid inlaid with deep-red ruby – and they said, make it bloody, make it hurt. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> And the next night the spirit of vengeance came down from the mountain, and the rival heir’s screams split the darkness. </em>
</p>
<p>He stops then, and she nudges him.</p>
<p><em> Very spooky, </em> she says, smiling. <em> But I know what you’re talking about, and assassins aren’t ghosts. </em></p>
<p><em> Aren’t they? </em> He seems strangely distant. <em> Sometimes, people around here swear that they still see them. Slipping silently through moonlight. Shifting into shadows. </em></p>
<p><em> Paranoia, </em>she dismisses.</p>
<p>He is quiet for a long moment. <em> I saw one, once, </em> he says. <em> Late at night, when all the village was sleeping. He was walking alone through the dim-lit street. A pale figure with hair as white as a shroud. A boy… a spirit of loneliness. </em></p>
<p><em> Loneliness? </em>She says, a tilt to her head.</p>
<p><em> Yeah, </em> he murmurs. <em> All ghosts are lonely. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>iv</strong>.</p>
<p>There is no such thing as ghosts, Illumi says.</p>
<p>He tilts Kilua’s chin up with one slender figure. It is a gentle gesture, but there is an inherent suggestion of threat in every movement Illumi makes.</p>
<p>After death there is nothing, Illumi says. That is why what we do is so powerful. To kill is to end something completely and totally.</p>
<p>Killua nods, but does not look at him. The chains biting into his wrists tell him, this is only a respite, this is only a lesson. Illumi will begin again soon. He is only five, but he knows this much.</p>
<p>Later, he is walking about on the grounds and he comes across Alluka, who has found a deer. The deer’s front leg is broken, and it cannot stand. It stumbles, bleating, away from Alluka’s entreating hands. Killua knows the leg will not, cannot, heal, so he extends his sharpened fingernails and cuts the deer’s throat.</p>
<p>Alluka sees the deer’s eyes go blank, recognizes that something essential is fleeing its body, and asks, where does it go?</p>
<p><em> Somewhere good, I hope, </em>Killua says. </p>
<p>He gives Alluka a piggyback ride back to the manor. Mike will take care of the rest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>ii</strong>.</p>
<p>For a year of Gon’s young life, he was sure he was haunted.</p>
<p>Sailors love their ghost stories, and Gon loves to listen to sailors. There is something particularly ghastly about maritime horror; the thrashing of the sea like an animal in pain, the wailing of the wind like a woman in mourning, the groaning of the ship like a man mortally wounded.</p>
<p>They tell him of ghost ships drifting on dead-still water, of crewmates lost in the crash of waves, of bloated faces leering green and blue just beneath the surface of the sea. They tell him of omens: a dead albatross, a red sunrise, the tolling of a bell.</p>
<p>Mito has to drag him away from the docks and the pubs when the sailors really get going telling tales, scolds him for hanging around such a place so young and so late. </p>
<p>Gon starts noticing things, though. He wakes in the morning to see a single black bird perched on his windowsill. He jolts out of nightmares with only the memory of a scream to explain the sweat on his brow. He finds shredded bits of red paper in his blankets, under his pillow, in his shoes. He walks home from the village and realizes a cat is following him at a distance; he turns and tries to coax it over to him, offers it pieces of food and the promise of affection. Usually he is good with animals, but this one will not budge. It only stares at him until he gives up, and resumes following him once more.</p>
<p>He asks Mito, <em> has anyone ever died in this house? </em>She tells him no, her father built this house, and though he died, he died at sea. And Gon thinks, if it isn’t the house that’s haunted, then it must be me.</p>
<p>He asks a sailor one day, <em> can you be haunted by something that hasn’t happened yet </em>? He isn’t sure where the question comes from. The sailor gives him a strange look, takes a swig of his beer, mutters something under his breath and makes a sign with his hand. Gon doesn’t know what it means, but it strikes him as protective.</p>
<p>That year, Gon’s great-grandma has a health scare. She trips and falls on the steps and breaks her hip. Gon finds her lying there, calling weakly for help, and runs as fast as he ever has to find Mito. They take her to the doctor, and eventually she heals, but Gon cannot shake the image of her crumpled at the base of the stairs.</p>
<p>Mito, he asks, what happens when we die?</p>
<p>Mito tilts Gon’s chin up, and he turns his face into her hand. She tells him, we will all be together, after, in the end. She says, Gon, do not be afraid of death.</p>
<p>(She doesn’t say, <em> but do not seek it </em>. It does not occur to her to say so. Why would she need to? A boy such as hers, so full of sunshine and joy, surely would not need to be told that.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>i.</strong>
</p>
<p>The people of Padokea do not know much about the Zoldycks, but they do know how many there are, and this is how:</p>
<p>Each fall, in the village nearest Kukuroo Mountain, there is a festival. Its name, in the old local language, loosely translates to the common tongue as The Day of Death-Spirits. For one day and one night, the town center is strung up with lanterns and paper decorations and booths fill the square. There is food and drink and games and music and in the center of it all, a grand table draped in white cloth is left empty except for a single drawstring bag, set on a silver platter. Every member of the village puts a single coin into the bag; this is the offering. The villagers leave the offering on the table, and they go about their business celebrating the festival, and they wait. </p>
<p>Most years, the sun rises over the silver platter and the white cloth and the offering is still there. The villagers smile and sigh and spill the coins onto the square’s cobblestones for anyone to take. But some years…</p>
<p>There is a longstanding tradition within the Zoldyck family that a child-in-training’s first test beyond the gates of the estate is to take the offering, unnoticed, from the festival before sunrise. The child is usually three or four at the time. It is primarily a test of stealth, though if some blood must be shed, that is acceptable. </p>
<p>Illumi completed the task within moments of reaching the village, moving through the crowds without a sound and slipping back out without a single clink from within the bag, which was almost as big as he was.</p>
<p>Milluki caused an explosion as a distraction and snatched and ran with the bag during the ensuing chaos.</p>
<p>Killua does the job the way Illumi taught him, by melting into shadows and silencing his footsteps. But when he reaches the center of town, he does not take the bag right away. Instead, he steals fistfuls of candy from the stall selling sweets and fills his pockets with the bright tin foil wrappers. He swipes a mug of hot, sweet chocolate left unattended for a brief moment at a table and drinks it down until his whole body is warm. He perches on a rooftop and watches the people move about in a cheerful mass of bright sound, watches the musicians play jaunty tunes with a haunting undertone, watches children run and laugh and play games and chase each other and trip on the uneven cobblestones and fall in a tangle of young scrawny limbs and laugh and laugh with their whole bodies.</p>
<p>When he does take the bag, he returns to the rooftops to watch what happens next. It takes a moment for anyone to realize that the silver platter is empty, but once one person does, the realization sweeps the crowd like a wave, in gasps and shrieks and cheers. </p>
<p>Someone shouts, <em> A new spirit has come down from the mountain! </em></p>
<p>In an excited rush, they flock to the table, and someone reaches beneath the tablecloth and brings out a large can of red paint, and they tip it over in a great splash on the white tablecloth, and all the villagers put their hands in it and smear it across their faces and their throats, and they dance a strange dance to the musicians’ macabre and stilted song.</p>
<p>Are they talking about him, singing about him? Killua looks at his hands. They are very white in the moonlight. What makes a spirit? What makes a ghost? They do not see him. They do not hear him. They do not touch him. And compared to them, flushed with exertion and dappled in warm lantern light, he is pale and very cold.</p>
<p>Killua makes no sound the whole walk home. Illumi meets him at the gate; he is still too young to open the doors by himself. Illumi has been waiting there for longer than he expected he would have to. Killua hands Illumi the bag of coins with all due solemnity, but Illumi can smell the chocolate on his breath, can see the flush in his cheeks, and he thinks, perhaps it was a mistake to send him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>v.</strong>
</p>
<p>Illumi does not care if he is a ghost story. (Illumi does not care about much of anything.) Illumi wears ghastliness like a finely tailored cloak. Illumi will stride through the Testing Gates uncaring of whoever sees him, for who would believe the tale?</p>
<p>They will return to the village on their rickety tour buses and they will tell their friends, what a creature it was that we saw, tall and elegant and moving without sound, with hair long and flowing like black water, with bottomless eyes to match. A spectre strong enough to shift the stones that stand before Hades, how beautiful, how terrible.</p>
<p>Their friends will scoff and say, impossible, no one opens the gate, no one sees the Zoldycks, no one survives an encounter with the spirits of violence that come down from the mountain.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>vii.</strong>
</p>
<p>Gon thought he knew what a haunting was. He was wrong. This, this is haunting: Kite’s face pale and gaunt and crisscrossed with scars, staggering on long broken limbs, and when Gon hugged him his skin felt cold.</p>
<p>Gon sees him in his sleep, sees him in the shadows of their room at night, <em> you failed him, you were weak, you did this. </em></p>
<p>Gon thinks he probably should have died instead. It would mean something, to die like that. And Kite wouldn’t be the way he is now, just barely stitched together. But Gon will fix him. Gon will make it right.</p>
<p>In those long weeks after NGL and before East Gorteau, Killua watches him quietly. Gon can feel him watching. He must be thinking what Gon is thinking: that Gon is helpless like this, and a burden, and no use to anyone. But Gon won’t fail him too.</p>
<p>When the time comes to face Pitou, Gon will do anything; this much he knows. It’s only right. </p>
<p>Sometimes when the night presses down on him too heavily, Gon wants to get up and go over to Killua and touch him gently between the shoulderblades, wants to wake him and hear his voice. He doesn’t, though. It’s a silly thing, but he’s afraid his hand will pass right through him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>viii.</strong>
</p>
<p>Killua knows death. Knows it intimately. Knows it is never graceful, never easy. Knows that a dying body struggles and shits and chokes. It is ugly and unpleasant and the only redeeming part is the eventual stillness, the quiet. </p>
<p>Killua stares through the glass into Gon’s hospital room. Everyone has told him that though Gon’s condition is slowly declining, he is not in pain. He is not suffering, that’s what they say. But Killua cannot believe it. Killua has no illusions about death. It is never graceful. It is never easy.</p>
<p>Killua closes his eyes and he presses his forehead to the glass and he can hear Illumi saying, <em> there is nothing after death, </em> and he tries, desperately, to remember the last thing he said to Gon, the last real thing. Something beyond just his name, beyond <em> is that you? </em>But before that was the argument in front of Pitou and before that was planning and strategy and before that they were separated and before and before and Killua can’t remember, did he ever tell Gon how important he was? How essential, how necessary? </p>
<p>And now, and now, if Illumi is right, if this is the end of Gon, the very total end, he will never know. Killua will never get to say. And Killua doesn’t believe in ghosts, but if this is the end, he will always be haunted.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>ix.</strong>
</p>
<p>Gon floats.</p>
<p>It is not like floating in the sea, buoyed by salt and warmed by the sun. It’s not like floating in an airship, watching the lights blink below like inverted stars. </p>
<p>Here there is no sensation, no sight or sound, no touch. There is barely even thought. </p>
<p>Vaguely, Gon is scared. He doesn’t know where he is, or why. But here, he has no body. Here, it is hard to care overmuch. </p>
<p>Gon thinks, am I dead? He thinks, is this what ghosts feel?</p>
<p>Distantly, Gon is sad. He’s missing someone. Maybe multiple someones. But he can’t quite remember anyone.</p>
<p>Eons pass. Or maybe only a few seconds. A hand touches his. And he is flooded with light.</p>
<p>He won’t remember any of this, after.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>vi.</strong>
</p>
<p>Killua’s rarely seen this village in the sunlight. He’s certainly never walked through it with friends by his side: Gon practically bouncing with cheerful energy, Leorio and Kurapika bickering good-naturedly.</p>
<p>A few days ago Killua was resigning himself to a life in the darkness. He was taking Milluki’s lashes without a word and locking the memories of the Hunter Exam in a safe enclosed space inside. He had a knife poised to cut out the soft vulnerable pieces of himself, the ones that would not survive in a life like that. </p>
<p>And now, all at once, he is free. He’s tossed the knife aside.</p>
<p>He can’t help but wonder, does he deserve this? Can he walk side by side with the living and the pure and leave them untainted? Well, maybe it’s selfish, but when he looks at Gon and his blinding smile, he thinks he doesn’t care about deserving. In this world you have to take every bit of brightness you can get and maybe, well, maybe, find something worth giving everything for.</p>
<p>A driver for a tour bus is slumbering under the shade of a gift shop’s awning. Killua pauses to look in the window. Among knick-knacks and cheap jewelry, there is a book by a local author, the cover cheesily designed. It’s called, <em> The Ghosts of Kukuroo Mountain. </em></p>
<p>Gon touches his wrist, asks him, Killua, do you want to get some lunch? Killua turns to him and smiles, says, yeah, why don’t we try the specialty from this region?</p>
<p>Gon’s eyes go wide as he heartily agrees, and he pulls Killua out of the shade and into the sun. </p>
<p>The light and the warmth of it sink into his skin. It does not go straight through him; he does not disappear.</p>
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